News
By Kersten Storch and Tom Best
Free photo available - see below.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an ecumenical initiative that, each year, involves Christian communities all over the world. Traditionally, it is celebrated from 18-25 January. In the southern hemisphere, where January is vacation time, churches often find other days to celebrate it, for example around Pentecost.
Christian unity: a challenge for today
What makes a "good story" for the news media? Something new, unheard of or at least unusual, but also something with high emotional content. Catastrophes and scandals are therefore well covered by news media. From this perspective, churches are all too often good "news makers", given their struggles and the on-going scandal of their divisions.
Yes, scandal: "Divided churches cost lives," said a pastor in Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Catholics were identified, however unfairly, with different sides of this bitter sectarian conflict. In Georgia, a radical group from one confession attacked an ecumenical prayer-meeting. And at the ecumenical Kirchentag (church day) in Germany in May, 2003, it was clear that communion between the two largest churches there, is far from complete; that rather than uniting them, bread and wine served in the name of Jesus at the eucharistic table makes their division plain for all the world to see. And the list could be continued.
What is true for the secular news media also applies to the church press world-wide: articles abound on the "crisis" of the ecumenical movement, its methods and goals. Many analyses of the ecumenical situation suggest that while things are just fine at the "grassroots" level, the "higher up" one goes in the churches, the more difficult it is to worship and work together.
Doubtless, this reflects the experience of many Christians. But it would be wrong to conclude from this that little is being done - and can be done - about the divisions among and within the churches.
The question of unity is not new. Indeed it has been a burning issue since the beginning of the Christian faith, as we see already in the New Testament. Thus, in Acts 15 Peter, James, Paul, Barnabas and other apostles gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the limits of diversity within the one, early Christian community.
The specific challenges to unity have changed over the course of history: the doctrine of the church; the understanding of the Bible; the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church; the place and role of women within the community of believers - these are just a few of the issues which have divided the churches over the centuries. And the challenge for the churches today remains fundamentally the same: to confess, worship, work and witness together despite all their differences.
The churches do not always meet this challenge; the search for Christian unity has seen its share of difficulties and setbacks. Yet the goal of unity has remained. The longing for unity has always inspired movements, communities and personalities who passionately worked and prayed for the visible unity of Christ’s church. Such groups and persons, of course, do not often make it into the headlines.
But sometimes they do! Last year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity service in Komarno, in the Slovak Republic, was one of those "major media events". In Slovakia, where different church traditions and confessions - not to mention diverse ethnic groups within the same church - seek to live together, the question of unity is highly relevant. And what is true in this newly established Eastern European state also applies to many countries and regions all over the world. Churches which seek to follow their calling, and to offer a strong Christian message to the society and context in which they live, can do so only when they confess, worship, work and witness together.
The Week of Prayer: a continuing call to unity
Each year, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity offers a key opportunity for Christians and churches to reaffirm their commitment to unity, and to bring the skandalon of their own brokenness and divisions before God. It is one place where they lament and mourn their divisions - but where they do it together; where they pray and search for ways to overcome their disunity, to accept and to love each other, to pray and witness together so that their discipleship becomes a vivid reality in and for the world.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity can trace its inspiration back to the second half of the 18th century where, in Scotland, the revivalist message of a Pentecostal movement included prayers for and within all churches. Over the years, important impulses came from Father Paul Wattson, then an Episcopalian priest; from the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops; from the Roman Catholic Church, not least from Abbé Paul Couturier of Lyon; from the Faith and Order movement; and from many individuals throughout the churches.
In 1966, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Secretariat [now Pontifical Council] for Promoting Christian Unity began their official joint preparation of the Week of Prayer material. Since 1975, the initial draft of the material is prepared each year by a local ecumenical group. Each year’s material is revised for world-wide distribution by representatives of the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission, and the Roman Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The local materials - coming in recent years from places as diverse as Malaysia, Italy, Syria and Argentina - are rooted in the challenges facing the churches there in their search for unity. And because the search for unity is not an abstract exercise, the Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity is based each year on a biblical passage which speaks to an issue of immediate relevance for the churches in our contemporary world, an issue which the churches must face together.
Of course, the concern for unity is not limited to one week each year! Thus the churches are encouraged to make prayer and work for unity a part of their life throughout the year.
The Week of Prayer for 2004: "My peace I give to you"
It was an ecumenical group from Aleppo in the North of Syria - from a region suffering from a long and difficult history of tensions and conflicts - which suggested the theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2004: "My Peace I Give to You" (John 14:27). Coming together as Christians from different churches, they were longing for peace, meditating and reflecting on the insights and inspiration which the Bible, and their respective traditions, offered for their work as peace-makers and bridge-builders. In their situation, where fear and mistrust and hate prevail and conflicts never cease, they turned to their faith for help.
The concerns of the Christians and churches in Aleppo are shared by others in every region and every land. Peace is all too rare in our world today. Wars, armed conflicts, terrorist attacks and violence of all kinds rock our world daily. And it is not only since 11 September, 2001, that the realities of violence in all its forms have touched nations and people everywhere!
Churches want to work for peace, for true peace which can endure because justice has been done, and reconciliation won. But in order for the churches to be credible witnesses and promoters of peace, peace needs to reign within and among the churches themselves. This is true for Aleppo and also in all the places, all over the world, where churches raise their voice, crying and working for peace.
"My peace I give to you" (John 14:27): the context in John’s Gospel from which these words of Jesus come reminds the churches that peace is found where the will of God is done. This can happen in many ways and on many occasions: where broken relationships are healed, where oppression and injustice are overcome, where forgiveness and reconciliation are enabled. The calling of the Christian churches is to contribute to these processes of peace-building, to pray and to work for reconciliation and a just peace. And it is their calling to do this together, "so that the world may believe" (John 17:21).
During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2004, churches will come together in countless places all over the globe to reaffirm their commitment to unity, to bring their divisions before God for healing, and to pray and work together for reconciliation and a just peace in the world around them.
This is a "good news" story, isn't it?
Rev. Kersten Storch, an ordained Lutheran minister from Germany, and Rev. Dr Thomas F. Best, a pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from US, are both members of Faith and Order team at the World Council of Churches.
Tips for Observing The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
The common worship service
-
Make the service interesting and accessible
Beyond the Week
-
Christian unity is not just for one week! Plan two more unity events during 2004
-
make clear that baptism is into the whole church, not just one denomination
2004 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Preparatory material
Resource materials including an order for worship, biblical texts accompanied by commentary and prayer, and additional prayers from Oriental liturgies have been proposed for the 2004 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by the churches of Aleppo, Syria. (The material incorporates some revisions made by the international preparatory group.) The worship service follows the model of ecumenical celebration regularly used by the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches of that city, in an ecumenical partnership in which each church fully recognizes baptisms from the other churches as well as mixed marriages.
The material for the preparation of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2004 is available on-line at: wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/wop2004.pdf
Additional prayers can be found at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/wop-prayers-e.html
Songs with musical scores are available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/songs2004.html
A free photo is available at: